Foolish

There hasn't yet been a moment on this trip when I've wanted to pack it in and come home immediately, but right now is about as close as I've come to that. There's nothing like common or garden flu like symptoms to tip one into homesickness. I spent the weekend surrounded by snotty tissues breathing the stale air of my flat wondering when I would next have to go to the Mini Stop downstairs for some more bottled water. On the upside I got to watch a few episodes of the classic BBC / David Attenborough series "Life On Earth," which is a decades-old televisual feast in the same vein as Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" that, looking at today's offerings, makes me wonder where television went wrong after demonstrating such promise earlier on in the piece!

Anyway, I've finally given in and will see a doctor this arvo. My manager is coming with me. She has a son fighting with the American Army in Iraq. Apparently she and her husband think I look like him and have made that connection to go the extra mile to help me, ie, looking after me will help them to feel easier about their son fighting someone else's war in a middle eastern hell hole. I never use that sort of language around her of course. I've met the guy and he's, well, young and naive. And there's all this talk about him becoming a man in the army. And stuff.

There's nothing like teaching to drain you of whatever resources you started the day with. "Yes! I can get through the day" soon becomes "Shit! How many more to go?" in the break between first and second periods. I am officially sick and tired of Korean food and I wish I was sunbathing on Koh Samui or somewhere equally exotic right now. There was a night I bobbed effortlessly in the tropical ocean, I looked up at the stars and the lanterns floating over from BoPhut Beach, then back at the decorations on shore - twinkling lights wrapped around a half dozen palm trees - I think I've written about it earlier, and I thought "this is the image I will carry with me!"

Backpacking in China in Winter - a fool's desire?